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This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of Pat Crank and has been added to the site with her permission…

I was 9 years old when war started and living in Ilford, Essex on the edge of London.

Close by to where we lived was Fairlop aerodrome and before the war I had flown in a pleasure trip on a bi plane from there. But now the field was surrounded by guns and huge barrage balloons.

Soon after the outbreak of war in September 1939 I went to stay with an Aunt in Lewes for 3 months, where there was no bombing. My parents remained in London.

I was brought back home in December but as all the schools were closed, any children that were not evacuated had lessons in somebody's front room.

In June 1940 I was sent to stay with some friends of my parents near Chesham in Buckinghamshire where I attended the village school. The friends I stayed with also had their nephew from London staying with them and when the London blitz started they had people to stay every weekend to give them a night's sleep.

One afternoon coming home from school I remember watching a 'dog fight' and hearing the planes weaving in and out over our heads and not realizing what the airmen were going through.

After two years I was brought back to Ilford and went to school at Wanstead High. the 'doodlebug' raids on London started in June 1944 and after a day spent mainly either under our desks, or in the air raid shelter, the school was closed. My family then moved to Stevenage for the duration of the war.

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